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2013-14 Pac-12 Women's Basketball Honors

STANFORD’S Ogwumike named Pac-12 Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the YearWASHINGTON’s Plum named Pac-12 Freshman of the YearSTANFORD’S VanDerveer voted John R. Wooden Pac-12 Coach of the Year

WALNUT CREEK, Calif. - In a vote of the league’s 12 women’s basketball head coaches, STANFORD senior Chiney Ogwumike was voted the Pac-12 Player of the Year and Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year, Commissioner Larry Scott announced today. Commissioner Scott also announced that WASHINGTON’s Kelsey Plum was selected the Pac-12 Freshman of the Year. Additionally, STANFORD head coach Tara VanDerveer was also voted the John R. Wooden Coach of the Year by her colleagues, the 14th time in her career and fourth-straight year she has won the award.

The Conference Coach of the Year honor was renamed in honor of the late John R. Wooden, former legendary UCLA coach, during the 2010-11 campaign.

PAC-12 PLAYER OF THE YEAR
PAC-12 DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR
CHINEY OGWUMIKE, Jr., F, StanfordSenior forward Chiney Ogwumike (Cypress, Texas) earns her second-straight Pac-12 Player of the Year nod after averaging 27.0 points and 12.1 rebounds per game. She ranks third in the country in scoring, eighth in rebounding, third with a 62.2 field-goal shooting percentage and sixth with 22 double-doubles, the only player in the country to rank in the top 10 in all four categories. She has recorded an impressive 13 30-point games and 26 20-point games this season. She has also been dominant on the boards, posting 22 double-digit rebounding games. The consensus national player of the year candidate was voted the Pac-12 Player of the Week a league-record nine times, and has earned the honor 18 times in her career, also a Conference record. Owning the Pac-12’s all-time rebounding record with 1,483 boards, she is one away from tying for 10th on the NCAA’s all-time list. Leading Stanford to its 13th-straight Pac-12 regular-season title, she is just 49 points away from tying the Pac-12’s career scoring mark, having tallied 2,580 for her career. Ogwumike became the 10th Cardinal to ever win the Conference’s player of the year honor last year with this year’s nod giving Stanford 18 all-time, by far, a league record. Ogwumike is also the Defensive Player of the Year for the third-consecutive year. She ranks eighth all-time in Pac-12 history with 190 career blocks. Ogwumike is the seventh Cardinal to earn Conference player of the year honors multiple times, following in the footsteps of big sister Nnemkadi Ogwumike (2010, 2012), Candice Wiggins (2005, 06, 08), Nicole Powell (2002, 04), Kate Starbird (1996, 97), Val Whiting (1992, 93) and Jennifer Azzi (1989, 90). A four-time all-conference selection, Chiney Ogwumike is the 11th player in Conference history to achieve the feat. She is also the ninth player all-time to earn the player of the year and freshman of the year in her career.

PAC-12 FRESHMAN OF THE YEAR
KELSEY PLUM, G, WashingtonA guard from Poway, Calif., Kelsey Plum is the second-highest scoring freshman in the country, averaging 20.9 points per game, which ranks fourth in the Pac-12 and in the top 30 nationally. The team’s leading scorer, she has led the Huskies to a 17-12 overall mark and 10-8 in Conference play. After starting Conference play with a 3-5 record, UW has turned it around and gone 7-3 since Jan. 31, earning wins over then-No. 4 Stanford and then-No. 20 California in that span. Plum won a Pac-12-record seven Pac-12 Freshman of the Week honors, including winning the award three-consecutive weeks from Feb. 10-24. Plum has recorded 16 20-point games this season, which ties for second most in the Pac-12. She also ranks fifth in the Conference with a 2.41 threes-made-per-game average, while boasting a 36.8 percent long-range shooting percentage (10th in the Pac-12). Plum is the second Husky in three years to win the Pac-12 Freshman of the Year award and third all-time. Teammate Jazmine Davis was selected the league’s top freshman in 2012, becoming the first UW player to receive the honor since 1988. Plum is one of only two freshmen named to the All-Pac-12 team. Under the direction of first-year head coach Mike Neighbors, Washington earned the No. 6 seed at the Pac-12 Tournament in Seattle.

JOHN R. WOODEN PAC-12 COACH OF THE YEAR
TARA VANDERVEER, STANFORDStanford head coach Tara VanDerveer has been voted John R. Wooden Coach of the Year for a fourth-straight season and the 14th time in her 28 years at Stanford. With a Conference record of 17-1, she has guided the Cardinal to a share of the regular-season Pac-12 title for the 13th year in a row and the program’s 23rd overall (including shared titles). A member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, VanDerveer has coached 10 players who have gone on to earn the Conference’s Player of the Year honor 18 times since the league began sponsoring women’s basketball in 1986-87, including Chiney Ogwumike’s back-to-back wins of the award. The top-seeded team in the Pac-12 Tournament for the 13th-consecutive year, the Cardinal have been ranked as high as No. 3 in the country this season, spending most of the season at No. 4. Stanford ranks in the top 25 in the country in nine different statistical categories, including boasting the fifth-best assist-to-turnover margin (1.43) and sixth-best field goal percentage (48.0). It is the fifth-consecutive year Stanford has claimed the league crown outright or shared it with just one loss or less, marking the 14th time overall.